A Day at the Zoo
by apishcan18
Summary: Mac and Claire decide to take their four daughters to the zoo. Mayhem ensues.


Disclaimer: I don't own CSI:NY or any of it's characters. I'm just borrowing them for a short time. I do lay claim to Akira and any OC's I can't remember. Spencer belongs to my sister, Eleanor belongs to a friend and Shayann belongs to another friend. All have agreed to let me post this story and use their characters.

So my sister, our two friends and myself were chatting on Skype and we started writing. This is the product, with some editing thrown in of course. We had fun writing it and we hope you have fun reading. The setting is when the four Taylor daughters are younger and Claire is still alive, obviously, so this is way before the show starts. Well that's all I'm going to say for now. Enjoy!

**A Day at the Zoo**

One fine sunny day, Mac and Claire Taylor decided to take their four daughters to the zoo.

The zoo was always a treat. Panda Bears and elephants, cougars and birds. Animals of every kind for each individual sister and even Mom and Dad.

The only down side for Mac and his wife was trying to keep 7-year-old little Ellie from running around and climbing all over everything.

"Ellie, dear, please settle down," Claire kindly asked her daughter.

"Mommy! I want to see the Tigers!" Ellie screamed happily, jumping up and down.

"Eleanor. No screaming," Mac ordered in a very stern voice. Ellie looked at Mac with her 'I really don't care what you say' look and then went to show Shayann the polar bears. She hijacked the stroller from Claire and pushed Shayann so fast that Shayann screamed with pure joy.

Akira and Spencer went running after their little sisters while their parents ran after them. Several people stopped to stare at the Taylor clan as they went rushing passed.

"TIGERS!" screamed Eleanor, even though she was pushing her little sister to the polar bears.

Spencer and Akira were still running behind them, breathing hard. "I gotta go look at the birds," Akira said, showing her grin. She knew Spencer hated birds.

"Take dad. PANDA BEARS FOR THE WIN WITH MOM!" Spencer yelled to the world. All Claire and Mac could do was wonder how any of the four troublemakers in front of them were theirs.

Ellie continued to run for the Polar Bears. Shayann squealed, "Yippeeeeee!"

Claire yelled after her daughter, "Ellie! Slow down before you crash Shayann into something!"

Ellie ignored her mother's plea and called back to her older sisters, "Hey Spencer, you wanted to see Panda Bears?"

"Yeah?" Spencer replied, sounding confused.

"We're gonna go there then first!"

Ellie turned the stroller too fast for the wheels and the next thing Ellie knew Shayann was soaring through the air. Ellie just watched in horror as Shayann went flying. She landed on the grass in the middle of the picnic area as Mac ran over to his daughter hoping that she wasn't gushing blood. Mac picked up a laughing Shayann as she looked up at him with her big blue eyes and said, "Again, Daddy, again!"

"No. We will _not_ be doing that again," Mac said sternly as he glared over at Ellie. She was giggling too hard to notice, thankfully.

Claire arrived just at that time and added her disapproval to Mac's. "I told you to slow down!" she scolded her second youngest daughter.

Spence and Akira rolled their eyes at Ellie. "Come on guys, let's go to the panda bears," Akira suggested. She helped Shayann get strapped securely into her stroller and they headed off. Ellie tried to take the handle bars from Claire, but Claire frowned and shook her head no.

"Hey, Ellie, Akira, let's race!" Spence hollered to her two sisters.

Ellie, Spence and Akira took off at a run.

They ran through a crowd of adults, Ellie knocking a coffee cup out of a stranger's hand. Spencer looked back and giggled. "SORRY!" she yelled for Ellie's sake as the four adults looked mildly upset.

"Hold your children!" one even yelled to Claire as Mac took to chasing his children.

"STEPHANIE! AKIRA! ELEANOR!"

Akira got a gleam in her eye. Spencer could only wonder what it was. "Panda bears on left!" Akira cried, darting into a doorway. Spencer and Ellie followed, Mac watching as the door slammed shut with a sickening sound of a latch locking.

Claire was far behind, taking it easy with Shayann. Shayann was bawling her eyes out. "I WANT TO SEE COUGARS AND POLAR BEARS!"

Claire could only sigh.

The second the three oldest Taylor daughters entered through the doorway, they heard it lock. They were on the hunt for another way out. "It T's off down at the end. If we turn left there should be an exit," Ellie said matter-of-factly.

They all ran towards the end of the hallway. Ellie looked at her two sisters and spotted something. She said, "Hey, they got two more pandas!"

Spencer asked, with a confused look on her face, "How do you know that?"

"I saw them," she answered.

Akira was curious and asked, "Yeah, but how? We were there for like two seconds."

Ellie just smiled and said, "My secret ninja skills no one believes I have."

Akira and Spencer rolled their eyes as they ran through towards the exit. Then they all saw their dad running towards them on the other side of the glass. Ellie thought fast and said, "Hey, lift me over that fence over there Akira. I can let you in from the inside and then we can wait until Dad leaves."

"Or we could just run back and hide in the crowd."

"Nah. I like my plan. I get to use my ninja skills again."

"How do you know what that is? You're 7," said Spencer.

"Yeah, 7. Not stupid," Ellie retorted.

But before Ellie could use her super ninja skills again, Mac was through the door, grabbing all three of them and dragging them into a corner to have a talk.

Claire was waiting for Mac to come back with the others when she bumped into Gail Smith, one of her co-workers. As they were talking, Shayann figured out that if she slid down in her seat enough, she could get out of the stroller. She wiggled out of her restraints and set out, determined to find the giant kitties at the zoo.

Mac gave his three oldest a stern talking to about running away and wandering through places they shouldn't be. He then marched them back to where Claire and Shayann were waiting. Only Shayann wasn't there.

"Honey, what happened to Shayann?" Mac demanded to know.

Akira, Spencer and Ellie looked around as they searched for their sister.

Claire looked in the stroller to find that Shayann had slipped out and disappeared. Claire groaned. "Mac, today was a bad idea. After we find Shayann, I want to go home."

Mac silently agreed, but their remaining three daughters heard Claire's words and began to protest.

"No! I WANT TO SEE THE TIGERS PROPERLY!" Ellie started to sob.

Mac knelt down next to her, sighing.

Spencer also piped up, "We have to see the birds for Akira! We couldn't have spent all that money for NOTHING!" She was quick to defend all her sisters - even though she really just wanted to get moving again. Shayann had ran off somewhere.

"Yeah, I want to see the birds!" Akira cried, pouting. She may have just hit puberty, but she was still a kid, and she wanted what she wanted! Plus, she loved birds. She just wanted to SEE THEM!

"Okay, okay," Mac started, gathering Ellie up in his arms. "We find Shayann, we see tigers, and we see the birds. And then we leave. End of story. Nothing more, nothing less. And if I hear a squeak out of any of you three, we leave before seeing the tigers and the birds. Got it?"

"Got it," answered Akira.

"Got it," said Spencer.

"Got it," Ellie said sweetly.

The second her father turned around to start looking for Shayann, Ellie got a sinister smile on her face.

"Oh no, why are you smiling like that?" Akira asked.

"Daddy never said no crossies," replied Ellie as she pulled her hands from behind her back. Her fingers were crossed on both of them.

"Hey daddy, the three of us are going down to the other end of the pathway to find Shayann."

Mac looked at his 7-year-old and said, "That better be what all you do or we'll go home."

"It will," she answered.

Mac and Claire went one way while the girls went the other way.

Mac soon found Shayann sitting in a corner eating cotton candy and sitting with one of the kids from her kindergarten class. Shayann smiled up at Mac and said, "Chrissie's dad bought us cotton candy."

Mac smiled and shook Will's hand. "Thanks Will. She somehow figured out how to get out of her stroller." He promptly strapped Shayann into a kiddy leash, even though she protested it the whole time.

Meanwhile, Claire was searching for Shayann, not realizing that Mac had found her. She had also lost sight of her three older daughters. Things were just not going well at all.

Akira, Spencer and Ellie were giggling as they wandered around the zoo together. "Don't forget to keep an eye out for Mom and Dad," Spence reminded her sisters.

Shayann was disappointed, but got dragged away with her cotton candy anyway. Claire looked around for her other daughters and gasped, realizing what had happened. "THEY'RE GONE, MAC! AGAIN!" she cried as Mac walked up with Shayann in tow.

Mac looked around wildly, not seeing any three of his children. He groaned. "AKIRA! STEPHANIE! ELEANOR!"

On the other side of the zoo, the trio were looking at the seals, laughing as one hit the glass wall and looked wounded.

"PENGUINS!" Akira said once they had slipped out of the viewing room.

"Okay," both sisters agreed, hooking arms, even with short Ellie, and waltzed away.

Akira was so into watching the penguins and their swimming when they got there that she didn't even notice that Spencer and Ellie had slipped away to go look at tigers.

As they walked out of the Penguin exhibit they almost bumped into Mac. Ellie saw him before he saw them and managed to push Spencer into a corner, much to Spencer's disgust.

"Hey! Watch it! These are new!" Spencer growled as she pointed to her Converse.

"Well, you shouldn't have worn them to the zoo, dummy," Ellie hissed as she watched Mac walk into the Penguin exhibit. They made a quick getaway to the Tigers, leaving Akira to fend for herself.

Akira had lucky just slipped out the other entrance of the penguin exhibit in search of Ellie and Spencer. They had ditched her. She sadly couldn't find them anywhere.

Ellie and Spence waited till Claire and Mac had disappeared with Shayann before darting to the next exhibit: the lions.

The lions were very EXCITING!

Back with Mac and Claire, Mac had a firm frown on his face. He was unhappy. "Grounded; for the next two months. Fitting?" he growled.

Claire nodded. She was tired - very tired.

Akira shrugged as she walked around, a little aimlessly. Well, that was until her father spotted her. She gulped, turned to run, but her father's feet were much quicker. A hand landed on her shoulder and pulled her back. "Not so fast, young lady."

Akira gulped and knew she was in for it. She just went willingly and didn't fight, knowing that her punishment would be worse if she fought it.

By the time Mac made his way back to Claire, she was panicking. "Mac! Shayann's gone – again!" Claire yelled, horridly frantic.

Mac could only groan. Coming to the zoo had been a bad idea.

He looked at Akira and said, "Don't you dare move." He then headed off to go find his other daughters.

Ellie and Spencer were just coming out of the lion's exhibit when Ellie almost ran over Shayann.

"Kitties! Where are kitties?" Shayann asked her sisters.

"Alright Shy. We will go see the kitties," Ellie said, taking Shayann's leash. She, Spencer and Shayann were off to see the cougars.

Claire held onto Akira's hand as she hunted for Shayann. Akira wanted to pull away. She was 13 after all and didn't need to hold her mother's hand. But after the warning from Mac, she dared not do anything to make her parents madder. So she suffered in silence.

Mac was looking frantically for his three wayward daughters when he bumped into Dora Barton, the mother of one of Ellie's classmates.

Dora had taken one look at Mac and had decided to seduce him. Mac was having none of it.

"You look handsome."

Mac glared. "Not the time, Dora." He paused in his search as he recognized the name. Dora _the Explorer_... he chuckled inwardly.

"Oh, but there is always time, cutie."

He groaned. "Right. I'm trying to find my daughters. So, quite trying to seduce me, Dora the explorer," and he slipped past her, her face a look of not only shock, but almost outrage. She had just been mocked, horribly.

"YOU'LL PAY FOR THAT ONE, TAYLOR!"

Mac rolled his eyes, looking around wildly for his children. There was no stopping the mischief of his children. Whatever was he going to do with them?

Shayann was having the time of her life hanging out with her two big sisters. But then she saw the cougars and flipped out. "KITTIES!" Shayann yelled and pointed as she ran as fast as her little legs could take her.

They all watched the cougars for a while until they decided it was wolf time.

But as they turned around, Spencer bumped into someone.

"Sorry," Spencer mumbled and tried to walk around the person only to find that the person followed her every move. Thoroughly annoyed, Spencer looked up and screamed as she looked into two very familiar blue eyes.

Mac grabbed Spencer by the arm and then grabbed Shayann. "Ellie, you leave my sight, you will be grounded for a year," he ordered in his sternest Marine's voice.

Ellie's eyes got huge as she nodded.

"We are going to find your mother and sister and then we are going home, where all six of us will have a long talk about the events of the day." Mac started marching the three girls back to where he'd left Claire and Akira.

They quickly found Claire and Akira and headed for the car. Along the way Shayann started to cry. "BYE BYE ANIMALS!" She blubbered, tears streaming down her face. Mac was stern on leaving, even though he hated to see his youngest daughter cry. She was five, but she still had run off twice, without an adult and without her sisters even.

Shayann cried all the way home and Mac had had just about enough of it.

"Mac, darling. Shayann did miss her nap today," Claire whispered.

As soon as they got home Mac picked up Shayann, put her into her Tinkerbelle big-girl bed and put up the side rails. He quietly shut the door and went back down stairs to have a talk with his other disobeying daughters.

Akira, Spencer and Ellie all sat in a row on the couch. They kept darting little glances at each other, all three clearly wondering what was in store for them. Mac sat down in one of the armchairs and Claire sat in the other. "Girls, would one of you like to tell me why we are having this talk?" Mac started.

Spencer looked at Akira. Akira looked at Ellie. Ellie looked at Spencer. One of them was going to have to be the martyr. Spencer wasn't going to be that person. Ellie shook her head ever so slightly. Akira sighed silently. Always the big girl... always the oldest. Always the one to take the fall. "We ran off without an adult, we disobeyed you on more than one account, and we made a mess at the zoo. Mostly the disobedience got us into trouble."

"That's right. And for disobeying and making a mess at the zoo that means no computer or TV for a week and no going to any friends' house. All three of you must come straight home from school for two weeks. Do I make myself clear?" Mac asked.

"Yes," Akira replied sadly.

"Crystal," Spencer sighed.

Ellie was pouting and then decided what her answer was. "Totally."

The three girls were then sent to their room. They trudged to their loft and spent the time before dinner hanging out alone. Ellie drew with the new markers she'd received for her birthday a few weeks before, Akira read a book and Spencer considered all her options on ways to break out through the window. None of her plans made much sense so she decided against them.

Dinner came and Shayann was finally up from her nap. They all sat down and started to eat before Spencer had to bring up the question she was dying to ask. "What about Shayann? She knew better too."

Both Claire and Mac looked at each other. They had thought about what to do with Shayann, but nothing had ever come full circle in their discussions alone. Claire looked over at Shayann and Shayann looked at her food. She wasn't hungry anymore.

Claire sighed as she fully decided what to do about Shayann. "Shayann doesn't get to have special time with Nana for two weeks and she can't go to her play groups for that same amount of time. That is her punishment."

Shayann looked up when she heard Nana. "Nana, I want nana!" Shayann yelled, confused.

"Sorry, honey. But no Nana for two weeks," Claire told her daughter.

Shayann scrunched up her face and started to cry.

Ellie smiled wide and stuck her tongue out at her sister as if to say 'ha-ha'. Shayann threw her hand back like she was going to hit her, tears streaming down her face, but Claire grabbed her fist.

Mac sent his daughters a glare. "Enough, you two!" he ordered.

Akira ducked her head. Spencer stabbed at her mash potatoes. Ellie winced and shoved a large bite of food into her mouth. Shayann started to cry again.

Claire sighed. "It is fitting. You must all understand this. We are family. And for a structured and loving home, we must have punishment where it is due. Please understand this. We love you all very much."

Soon dinner was over and everyone headed back to their appropriate room for the night.

Akira tucked Shayann in for the night and then went to the loft. She crawled into her bed, finding that Spencer was already fast asleep and Ellie was doing her reading homework.

Later that night Claire and Mac were in bed talking about their outing and decided that they wouldn't be taking another Taylor Family outing for a long time.

The end.

But wait! There's more! Claire woke up in the middle of the night to check on the kids, but they weren't in their beds!

GASP!

But that is a totally different story to be told at a later date.


End file.
